


Fade Found, Triumphant

by broomclosetkink



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Found Family, Solavellan, Solavellan Hell, elder care, history nerd is living history SURPRISE
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 02:47:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30082311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broomclosetkink/pseuds/broomclosetkink
Summary: Ellana Lavellan is thirty-three and starting her life over after a decade as a caregiver. Returning to graduate school, she struggles to build a life centered on herself while perusing her dreams, metaphorically and literally. In the Fade, she meets with the highest god of her people, Fen'Harel, the Dread Wolf of legend and renown. Befriending an ancient deity wasn't what she had planned, but she's always been a sucker for broken things.Or: Ellana dreams that she is on her on knees. “Var lath vir suledin,” she begs, and the misery exploding emerald from her arm is nothing compared to the wound in her chest. There is no blood, no torn skin, no dagger between her ribs, but still it feels as though her bones are being shattered and her heart torn from the cage of its body.
Relationships: Female Inquisitor/Solas (Dragon Age), Female Lavellan/Solas (Dragon Age), Fen'Harel/Female Lavellan (Dragon Age)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Fade Found, Triumphant

**Author's Note:**

> Long story short: I was my Grandma's elder caretaker for nearly 11 years, and I have a lot of feels surrounding it. So I put them on Ellana and said "SUFFER AS I SUFFERED" and then, I don't know, things got really out of hand. Trauma is better when you make your favorite couple kiss kiss fall in love, amirite? So uh... yup. Probably slow updates, because I'm in my final year of college and free time is an illusion. Concrit is ALWAYS welcome, as is a beta reader, because I SUCK at editing myself.

Ellana dreams of green. It surrounds her, blinding with its intensity. It pulses out of her, a matching glow of only slightly reduced strength exploding from her left hand. There is pain, agony beyond imaging, as she forces the key to the lock and twists it shut, over and over again. It is a thousand moments of bright green, her arm lifted, her soul shredding at the edges as she grits her teeth and ignores the pain. At least until it can be ignored no more, until her skin is cracked and webbed with a power her fragile flesh has no hope of containing.

Ellana dreams that she is on her on knees. “Var lath vir suledin,” she begs, and the misery exploding emerald from her arm is nothing compared to the wound in her chest. There is no blood, no torn skin, no dagger between her ribs, but still it feels as though her bones are being shattered and her heart torn from the cage of its body.

Ellana dreams that she is dying. She can taste the blood in the back of her throat and on her lips. Her arm aches and itches, as it always does, even though it is half-magic and half-machine, with tiny twirling gears and fingers deft enough to pick up elfroot. She is on her back and, above her, the sky is green. It is _everywhere._ There is a voice, raging and desperate, and it shakes the whole world.

“ _No,_ ” he roars, and there are hands under her head, her shoulders. She’s being lifted, pulled against metal and fur, and all she can now see is _him._ His eyes, his nose, his mouth, his long chin. Every part so well traced and beloved that he remains even when he is far, far away.

“Not like this,” he pleads, “not now. Please. Please, vhenan.”

Blood wells from between her lips. She’s touching him, fingertips against the underside of his jaw, and she can feel his tears as they land on her own cheeks. “Don’t --” she gurgles, turns her head and spits out the blood filling her lungs, her throat, her mouth. Wheezing brokenly, she issues her final command. “Don’t -- punish -- them. They -- deserve a -- chance -- to -- live.”

Magic is pouring into her as the sky splits and the green intensifies, as wisps begin to swirl around them. But she is a broken vase that can no longer hold water, and all that soft healing energy is spilling out of her cracks.

“Ar lath ma.” Blood runs hot down her cheek, her chin. Her chest has been crushed. A blow she was too slow to avoid, too old to spring away from, too mortal to recover from. Still, she gives him her last smile, sure that he is the only reason her heart still yet beats.

He chants, endlessly, “No, no, no; please, no, not this, no --” She can feel the power twisting and changing, magic flowing over her as though she’s been laid into cool water. He is working magic, some great magic, and she wants to tell him _stop, don’t, let me go, our time has gone,_ but there is --

Ellana dreams of soft darkness, and a faint voice calling from a far away place.

*

Varric’s office is small and very comfortable. The furniture is all overstuffed to divine softness, and there are fluffy blankets always just an arm’s reach away. He knows, better than she knows, that as his friend, she should not be is client. But he’s the only one she can open up with in this way, can reveal all the darkness and wounds to, and not feel absolutely terrified in the process.

Dropping her purse to the floor, she flops onto the low couch with a groan.

“You look like shit,” Varric says dryly, closing the door behind her.

Sigh heavily, Ellana rests her head on the back of the couch and closes her eyes. “Deshanna had a long night,” she answers. “She didn’t know who I was. She wanted her mamae. I finally had to move her into the aravel and sleep with her there until morning.”

Varric is, objectively, and extremely handsome man. Unlike most dwarves, he wears nothing more than stubble, though he always starts the day with a perfectly smooth face. His hair is dark blonde and the hair on his chest is thick and curling. His shoulders are broad enough to support a pillar in the Deep Roads. For a very brief two-week period, shortly after first meeting him, Ellana had a _completely_ ridiculous crush on the man.

Then she realized that no matter how handsome he was, the clinical psychologist had so much baggage of his own that she had _no_ desire to fit herself into that mess. Ironic, she thinks, that her therapist is as equally fucked up as she is… but it’s also very comforting, as well.

“You know what I’m gonna say, right?” Varric settles into his low office chair, one ankle on the opposite knee as he pushes himself slowly side-to-side with his one grounded foot. His hands are steepled in front of him, elbows on the arm rests. He’s peering over his thick fingers at her, serious and concerned.

“I know. I know she needs better care, Varric. I’m _trying._ ”

“One person cannot care for a dementia patient every day, all day, with only two three-hour breaks in a seven-day week. Have you seen yourself, Lucky?”

Grimacing, Ellana covers her face with hands, in a belated attempt to shield her features from view. She should have worn make-up. When she came out of the shower this morning and saw herself in the foggy mirror, she’d known what Varric would say. He would see the black circles under her eyes, the stress pimples, the limpness in her hair, and the exhaustion and sorrow in her eyes, and he would _know._ But dressing was difficult enough, and then she’d had to reacclimate Deshanna to Ghilen (once Deshanna had been his mother’s midwife, had pulled him wet and bloody and screaming into the world, but now she cringed away at the sight of his unfamiliar face).

It would help if the Clan sent the same person for each visit. It would help if fucking Saeris wasn’t a piece of shit person and helped her care for his grandmother. Unfortunately, no one was willing to spend even six hours a week with Deshanna.

“She’s our _Keeper,_ ” she snaps, drawing her hands back and glaring at Varric as though it’s somehow his fault. She’s not angry with him, she’s just angry in general, and here seems to be the only place she can fully release it. “Our fucking _Keeper,_ Varric. She was midwife to us _all._ She nursed us through illness and grief, raised us up in times of plenty and joy… she was the center of our Clan. The heart. Now they’ve forgotten her. It’s not fair. It’s not right.”

“I agree, it’s not fair or right. But you know, just like everyone else knows, that life sucks. Nothing is fair. No one ever does the right thing.”

Tears spring hot and vicious in Ellana’s eyes. “ _I’m_ doing the right thing! If I can -- if I can do --” Clenching her jaw shut, Ellana turns her head away and covers her eyes.

She loathes crying. Despises internal weakness. Unfortunately, she’s an extremely tenderhearted and emotional person.

“Not everyone is as kind as you are, Ellana.” Varric’s voice has gone soft with sympathy.

There is a prolonged period of silence. She knows that this is his way of _making_ her talk, that he probably does it with everyone, but she can no more hold her tongue in an awkward silence than she can sit still for more than a few minutes at a time.

“I spoke with Saeris two days ago.” The words are brittle, thin, and ready to shatter at any moment. Her leg is jumping with anxiety. Ellana does not, cannot, look at Varric as she says this. “I’m being replaced. Or skipped over, I guess.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I’m going to _stay_ First. When Deshanna dies, instead of becoming Keeper, I’m going to be Saeris’ First. The Clan had a meeting regarding ‘leadership’ last week. Since he’s been acting as defacto Keeper while I’ve been caring for Deshanna, the Clan decided that he would -- instead of me --”

There is no thoughtful, measured response from Varric. No, all professionalism has fled in this moment. Right now, he is only a dear friend reacting to the gut-wrenching news of another.

Slamming his other foot back on the floor, Varric leans so far forward in his chair that he’s in danger of falling out of it. The legal pad he takes notes on slides off his knees, and his big hands have taken a death grip on the arms of his chair.

“No, they _fucking_ did _not._ ” This is one of only three times in their friendship that Ellana has seen Varric really, truly furious. She’s seen him irritated, annoyed, disturbed, and pissed off -- but this? This is rage and outrage, and she can see the violence sparking like flames in his brown eyes.

She knows enough of his past, and even current ventures, to know that when Varric becomes angry, lives may be on the line. Born to a powerful Merchant’s Guild family, Varric’s younger life was like something out of an Orlesian mafia movie. Normally, she’d avoid telling him anything regarding Clan Lavellan politics, strictly because of his background; Varric may not be wholly active in the underworld, but he’s more than able to put a hit out on people that harm his friends.

But today? After cradling a weeping Deshanna and singing her lullabies, the two of them crammed on the little bed at the back of the cold aravel? After Saeris’ smug face and his hand on her shoulder? Mythal preserve her, but she half-wishes he’d take the whole fucking Clan out.

“Yeah,” she sharply answers, her voice gone high and thin with tears, “they sure as fuck did.”

“But you -- you gave up school and a promising career to _become_ Keeper. And all because they threw a hissy fit because you’d left!”

“I know!” Tossing her hands in the air, Ellana leans forward as well, until there’s little space between them. “Right? Creators, _fuck_ those guys!”

“So, they just wanted you to come back and take care of Deshanna, is that it? And now they think you’re beaten down and compliant enough to agree without complaint, that you’re just going to stay there until Deshanna dies. And then, who fucking cares, because they don’t need you anymore.”

“That’s what _I_ fucking said! Know what Saeris said? That I forfeited my right to become the next Keeper when I left the Clan to go university. I mean, I knew they all _thought_ that, but come the fuck _on!_ ”

It is a visible struggle for Varric to reel himself back in. He does not manage to wipe the scowl off his face, but he picks up his notepad and finds his pen from where it fell between his legs. Leaning back, he inhales slowly, holds it, and finally exhales for several long beats.

“Okay. So, what are you doing to do?”

More tears come. Ellana holds a hand over her mouth and she turns away again, curling her left arm around her stomach as though physically holding herself together. Only once she is more composed does she curl her fingers under her chin, allowing herself to speak.

“I called Adult Protective Services. A Wycome branch agent came out. They’re -- they’re doing an emergency placement for --” Her voice cracks and wavers. “For Deshanna. She’ll be in a nursing home by the end of the week.”

There’s a painting on the wall. It’s one by Merrill, dark on the edges and bright at the center. There is an Eluvian in a frame that twists and curls like a serpent; the style suggests Tevinter, though the Eluvian itself is much older. The mirror is bright and glowing, seeming to move under her eyes, and she wishes she could step through it and go… somewhere, anywhere else. A new country or a new world. A new Ellana.

“I know how hard this is for you, Lucky, but Deshanna needs around the clock care. And you need rest.”

“No rest for the wicked,” she murmurs, the side of her mouth cocking up in a half-hearted smirk. “My reparations check isn’t enough to live on. I’m looking for work. And a place to live. They’re kicking me out. Doesn’t matter that’s the house I grew up in. Doesn’t matter that they’re supposed to be my family. I’ve gone against the wishes of the Clan, which means… I’m not part of the Clan anymore.”

“Yeah, well, fuck those guys. Listen, if you call Merrill, she can help you find a place in the city.”

“I don’t need charity --”

“We all need charity, at one point or another. Come on, this is literally what Merrill does. Her entire job is helping Dalish elves that have been kicked out of their Clans. Call her.”

Ellana would rather cut out her own tongue than call Merrill because that would be admitting defeat. It would be saying, explicitly, that when she left uni and Merrill told her what would happen -- that she would be used up and tossed aside, because the moment she left the reservation lands she was a flat-ear to them and nothing more -- that Merrill had been right. About _everything._

Not that her friend will rub it in her face. Oh no, Merrill is much too kind for that. Instead, Ellana will be cruel to herself, for being too fucking blind and naïve to have seen it back then.

“I’ll do that,” she says, even though they both know she’s lying through her teeth.

“You know what this means, though, right, Lucky?”

Ellana shoots Varric a glance, too tired for curiosity. “What?”

He’s smiling, soft and sweet and happy. “It means you can go back to school.”

“Fen’Harel’enaste! I’m thirty-three, I’m too old.”

“You’re gonna be postgrad, no one cares how old you are.”

“ _I_ care. I don’t want to be surrounded by twenty-somethings that have… energy, and hopes, and unshattered dreams. I’d hang myself.”

Varric makes a sound of noncommittal, which Ellana knows really means, “I’m not going to call your bullshit because I know how stubborn you are.”

She hates that fucking sound.

But by the end of her hour, when she’s got her purse on her shoulder and she’s on her feet, watching Varric scroll through his schedule to book next week’s appointment, she can’t keep quiet. “You think I should?” she asks, too fragile to be anything but hopeful. “Go back to school, I mean?”

“Yeah, Lucky, I really do.”

By the time she’s back in her car, she’s already got visions excavation sites and pottery shards dancing through her mind.

*

Wycome County Nursing Home is long and narrow, with branching wings on either side. Whoever designed it hated style of any sort. But it has big gardens, resident therapy animals, and a large percentage of elves both in residency and staff. A few of which were formerly Dalish. The sight of vallaslin will undoubtably ease Deshanna at times.

“Oh,” says Deshanna in a crippling moment of clarity. “Who’ve we come to visit, da’len?”

Ellana very nearly swallows her tongue. Instead, she focuses on turning into a parking spot, the one closet to the door.

“Keeper…” She switches the key, turning off the rattle of her ancient car, and stares at her white knuckles. How can she say, ‘Your adopted me, raised me, loved me, and now I’m abandoning you because I’m too tired?’ “I -- the Clan -- no, me, I have decided that -- that I’m going back to Kirkwall. I’m going back to university.”

“Oh, da’len!” Deshanna lights up, glowing with brilliant happiness. She reaches across the space between them, gathering Ellana’s hands up in her own. Her skin is paper thin and achingly soft. Her brown eyes are bright with pleasure, all her usual confusion having fled. “Da’len, I am so _happy!_ Why, I’ve been telling that grandson of mine that he ought to go to school, too, but oh, you know how stubborn Saeris is. Thinks we ought to be shitting in the trees and shooting humans for coming too close to our camp. Fool boy took after his father. Who took after his father, and that’s why you shouldn’t marry until you’ve been with them a few years. Really get to know them.”

A snort of laughter escapes Ellana. Oh, she misses this Deshanna; kind and funny, a bit crude, but always so loving.

“He’s certainly stubborn,” is all she says, though she has called Saeris -- to his face -- a great number of less unflattering things. “But you know… Keeper, I can’t live with you and go back.”

“Well, of course not. The Eluvian fees would be astronomical. Though why we elves have to pay a fee to use the magics of _our_ ancestors…” Deshanna shakes her head.

Licking her lips, Ellana struggles to put the words together. “That means… it means that you’ll be staying here. In the home.”

Deshanna considers a moment, head tipping to the side so one of her long, white braids falls over her shoulder. “Can’t I stay with Saeris?” she asks.

_Yes,_ Ellana would like to say. _That’s where you should be._ Instead, she answers, “He’s got three kids at home, and he’s not sure that… that it would be a good fit.”

“Ah.” An expression of cold, resigned knowing falls across Deshanna. “He does not want to bother with caring for an old woman.”

A bitter truth she’d wanted to keep from Deshanna, but now that’s it out there… “Yeah. That’s about the size of it.”

“Well then.” Deshanna takes Ellana’s hand again, giving it a gentle squeeze. “It will be a new experience, won’t it, da’len? I’ve never lived with shems before.”

“Maybe don’t call them shems, Keeper.”

“So long as they don’t call me knife-ear.”

“Well, you can give them a zap if they do that. Then call me, and I’ll set the fuckers on fire.”

“That’s my girl.” Deshanna’s smile is bright and wicked, and oh, Ellana loves her, loves her, loves her.

But by the time she’s fetched a nurse’s aide with a wheelchair, Deshanna has gone. The woman that she helps from the car is confused and agitated. She slaps at the aide’s hands and says, “I am your _Keeper,_ da’len, do not manhandle me!”

“It’s all right, Deshanna. It’s okay. This is Mav, she’s going to help us go inside there, okay?”

She holds Deshanna’s hand the whole way. The elderly Keeper cries when Ellana attempts to separate them and no number of kisses and hugs and tearfully whispered words of, “I’ll visit as often as I can, I promise,” helps.

A kindly nurse draws Ellana back, her arm warm and strong around her curled shoulders. “Honey, it’s best you go on. The more you draw this out, the harder its gonna be on you both.”

“But she’s -- she’s crying for me, I can’t -- I can’t leave her like this --” Ellana is sobbing, her words tangled up with tears and snot and great, heaving breaths.

“I know, hon. I get it. But in half an hour, she’ll have forgotten she was upset at all.”

She sits in the parking lot for an hour, sobbing like a lost child.

Driving away is the hardest thing she’s ever done in her life.

*

Ellana spends several hours in Deshanna’s bed. The quilt on it is one they made together, when she was a little girl. They sat up the quilting frame in the front room and, sitting opposite each other, worked together every night for a month. It was the first quilt top Ellana had ever fully cut and pieced together herself, and it had been a birthday gift for Deshanna.

Her chest is hollow and aching. She’d like to cry but can’t. Her eyes are too swollen and gritty, feeling like they’ve been bathed in sand. She’s unmoving, staring blankly at the wall ahead of her as the sunlight slowly travels across it.

This is how Saeris finds her.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he demands.

Saeris is not a big man, not even for an elf. He’s short, impossibly thin and narrow, and his eyes are dark and hateful. If Ellana had the energy for it, she’d spit in his fucking face, but she has none. Curling a bit tighter under the quilt, she remains quiet.

“Ellana. Ellana! Mythal’enaste, get the fuck _up._ ” His hand on her arm is hard, wrapping tight around the (too thin) limb, pulling so hard that she yelps in pain and shock as she’s drug from the bed. Her knees slam against the wood floor, but Saeris keeps pulling, has a grip on her other arm now and is hauling her upright and pushing her towards the door.

“Get out,” he orders. “You’ve got no place here, any longer.”

All at once, that void in Ellana’s chest is full of throbbing, bitter anger. She can taste the magic in the air, can feel the Veil warping far above as she pulls and draws, winding magic around her fingers with such thoughtless ease that many would be terrified. But Ellana is no Circle mage, is not frightened of herself; Deshanna taught her to be fierce and half-wild, strong and sure. When she blows Saeris back, he _flies_ down the hall. He hits the back wall hard, knocking off it and landing on the floor with a low groan.

Ellana _storms_ over to him, to the prone little man on the floor that is so weak he could not even truly assist in caring for his grandmother. A woman that loved them, fed them, raised them, adored them both beyond measure --

“You fucking twat,” she snarls, drawing him upright like a puppet on strings. He’s shouting and half mad, twisting fearfully against the magic holding him upright. Blood pours from his scalp, painting half his face in dark, vivid red. There’s real fear in his eyes.

“I wiped her ass. I cooked her meals. I went without food so she could have it. I have loved and cared for Deshanna for ten years, and you -- you did nothing! You’d sit with her once in a while, so I could go to therapy, and what? That was too hard on you? Too much? You weak, pathetic little _child_ of a man --”

“Fuck you!” Saeris wails, struggling even harder, now. “She’s _my_ grandmother, not yours!”

“ _She raised me!_ ” Ellana shrieks, temples pounding so hard she’s faintly worried that she might pass out. “She _adopted_ me!”

“She loved you more! I’m her grandson, but she loved you more than me _or_ Papae!”

“ ** _Because you’re both assholes!_** ” Ellana’s roar scrapes roughly out of her throat, burning like a bloody wound. With a studied curl of intent, she pulls her magic back, and Saeris drops to his knees. He moans, clutching his head and wobbling drunkenly. He’s probably got a concussion. Creators, she hopes he does. The bastard deserves it.

“I’m leaving in three days,” she says, feeling as empty and wrinkled as a used-up plastic bag. “Don’t come back until I’m gone.”

“This is _my_ house, now, you don’t get to --”

“It belongs to the city-state,” she says, slowly walking back to Deshanna’s room. “Or it will when she passes. Looks like you won’t be moving your bitch of a wife into _my_ home after all.”

Saeris blossoms scarlet with rage, but he does not stop her. Though he still has a mind enough for threats.

“I’ll have you arrested for assault!”

“Creators,” she sighs. “I wish you would.” Three square meals and peace and fucking quiet in a tiny cell? Two to five years to sleep and rest, after a decade of being a caregiver? Honestly, it sounds like heaven.

*

The police don’t come, and Ellana packs in semi-peace. She has the dream every night, the _only_ dream that she cannot inflict her will upon. She cannot wake or escape it, cannot step out of her body and observe the spirits playacting -- it is an endless loop of green, and pain, and his weeping eyes as he begs her not to die.

She wakes with the taste of blood in her mouth, gagging and coughing as though she’s been physically injured. There’s not enough coffee in the world to deal with that first thing first thing of a morning.

The other problem is that she cannot pack up everything and take it with her. She did break down and contact Merrill and, bless her, the other mage found her a shared two-bedroom in Kirkwall’s alienage. Bit of a walk from the University, but she’d rather be close to the Hanged Man, anyway. But this house, as old and small as it is, is full of her. She’s lived in it since she was four, fresh from the foster home that she spent all of two nights in after her parents died. Deshanna welcomed her with warm, loving arms, and between these walls and behind these windows, Ellana was happy.

She takes the oldest photo albums because she knows Saeris won’t keep them. They’ll be thrown out or ruined within months, and that she won’t allow. It’s her family, too, even if she is only a cousin to Saeris. From the more recent albums, she pulls all the photos of her, and there are _a lot._ Deshanna constantly hand a camera in hand, proudly documenting every stage of her life.

She’s going to make a scrap book of her youth, going in order of age, and give it to Deshanna. A nice keepsake to look at in the home, in the times her mind is in place. Maybe it will sooth her, even when she’s floating somewhere out of reach.

She takes the dishtowels Deshanna embroidered; the hideous clown cookie jar that she hates but Deshanna adores; all of Deshanna’s sewing supplies, though bushels of fabric are left in want of space to put them; one sewing machine from the multitude; her bedroom furniture and the kitchen set; actually, she takes the majority of everything from the kitchen, cast iron included, because _fuck_ Saeris, that’s why. She takes quilts and afghans, nearly all the books, and Deshanna’s hope chest. Her own clothing and personal items are an afterthought, really.

On the morning of her move, Merrill and Carver Hawke show up in Merrill’s beat-up truck with a trailer attached to it. She hugs them both and, for the last time, prepares a meal in her kitchen. She ties on the apron Deshanna made her, opens the windows to let in the scent of the nearby woods, and reverently sets to work. She fries eggs and bacon and makes homemade biscuits and gravy.

While Merrill and Carver eat, she cleans up. She packs everything away in the awaiting box, her hands only slightly trembling.

“I’ve only lived in two other places,” she says, as she sits down to her own cooled plate. “I’ve… I’ve spent nearly my whole life here.”

Swallowing a massive mouthful of food, Carver asks, “Want me to kick Saeris’ ass?”

“Oh, she already did.” Merrill’s sweet voice is drenched with vindictive pride. “Gave him a concussion.”

“No shit?” He sounds absurdly proud of her, and it makes her grin.

It strikes Ellana, as it does from time to time, that Carver Hawke is a _truly_ handsome man. He’s got that rugged Ferelden thing going -- not like a hipster in flannel and suspenders, but the real farm boy deal. His shoulders are nearly as wide a druffalo and bright blue eyes, with a mess of black hair tied back in a small bun. A carpenter by trade, his hands are big and heavily calloused.

Ellana had a _crippling_ crush on him, back in University. He was older than her, took part in drunken bar fights, and regularly went out to the Wounded Coast to hunt fucking _demons_ with his badass sister. Nine-tenths of Kirkwall was in lust with him. Hell, they probably still are.

Thankfully, she no longer strings together word salads in front of him. At least, no more than usual.

“Yes shit,” she confirms, taking a bit of perfectly crisped bacon.

“What’d you do? Whack him with a skillet?”

She shakes her head. “Magic.”

Carver drapes a thick arm over the back of his chair, his eyes gone wide. He whistles, low and long, as his eyebrows crawl up to meet with his hairline. Given that Marian Hawke, the Champion and his sister, is a mage of great renown and _punishing_ abilities, he knows the damage that can be wrought at the hands of a mage.

“I’m shocked he’s not dead.” There’s seriousness to those words. “I mean, if he is and you’re scared to tell us, please know I can help you hide a body.”

“He can.” Merrill nods, while reaching for another biscuit. She splits it open, steam still rising from the soft insides as she begins to spread butter on it. “He’s done it loads. I’ve helped, too.”

“Hey, babe, please don’t go around telling people about that. We could, y’know, go to fucking prison.”

“I’m not telling people, I’m telling Ellana. She won’t turn us in.”

Ellana knows of their Wounded Coast adventures, as well as a great more in Darktown. Varric was involved in the majority, as well. Once, it had shocked Ellana. But her time in Kirkwall taught her that it works differently than literally anywhere else in Thedas, and sometimes remaining alive relies on your ability to kill another person.

“He’s really not dead. I won’t do that to Deshanna.”

They chatter about nothing while Merrill and Carver graze, and Ellana eats her meal. Then she goes back in for seconds on biscuits and gravy, and finally thirds, finishing the last biscuit with butter and jelly. Once finished, she washes the remaining dishes and packs them away.

Moving is miserable. Taking her antique bedframes apart sucks. Getting the mirror off her equally antique vanity is the worst. Even using magic to lighten the load, her furniture is hardwood and heavy as balls. Even Carver strains against her headboard, his muscles tight and veins bulging in distracting ways.

Deshanna’s hope chest, a massive cedar chest packed with memories and mementos and the good china, bubble wrapped and surrounded by linens, is ungodly heavy. Carver and Ellana lift, one on either side, while Merrill takes as much of the weight off with magic as she can. Unfortunately, barriers of this kind can only do so much.

By the end, the trailer and bed of Merrill’s truck are packed full. Everyone is aching and breathless, and more than ready to get leave.

At the door, Ellana pauses. It hits her, suddenly, that this is the last time she will walk out. There is no return, no Deshanna in the little parlor, working embroidery or crocheting. There will be no more family meals in the kitchen, where she and Deshanna work side-by-side, creating feasts big enough to feed the entire Clan.

Deshanna’s staff stands ready by the door. Ellana’s is already behind Merrill’s backseat, and she had no intentions of taking the old Keeper’s. It’s a family heirloom, passed down from Keeper Lavellan to Keeper Lavellan. She runs her fingers down the smooth wood, wondering how many of her ancestors had touched it. The runes embedded in it light up at even that faint graze. It’s always been especially reactive around her, which assured Deshanna that Ellana was the best choice for the next Keeper.

“They say,” she begins, but chokes up with a sudden wave of tears. It takes a moment to sniff them back, to be able to push out enough air to speak. “They say that this belonged to Inquisitor Lavellan. According to legend, it was the staff she carried when the Veiled Cities were created, and the Fade flooded the rest of the world. She died with this staff beside her.”

“Fen’Harel’enaste,” Merrill breathes, halfway down the porch steps. She looks as though someone has opened a vault of gold. “Ellana, you _cannot_ leave this with Saeris.”

“I’m not Keeper,” she whispers. “It’s not mine.”

“Do you realize how important this is? If this staff was truly the Inquisitor’s, then it…it was there as Fen’Harel mourned his lost love. It may have fought the false god Corypheus. Creators, Ellana, this is important history, and he will _not_ care for it.”

Merrill is as passionate about the history of their people as Ellana herself. The truth rings hard in her, like a bell hit with a mallet. She _knows_ that this priceless piece of history will end up in a shem’s museum, bought from a greedy Saeris. She plucks it from the custom-made stand, and her mana surges. The focus, a swirling globe held in magically twisted and entwined branches, lights green.

Green as the fade, green as her dreams, green as the Breach splitting open and demons raining out --

A ringing, concussive force blows outwards. Merrill staggers back, falling down the steps and into Carver. He manages to brace and hold them both up, but the door slams against the wall and the hat rack is knocked over.

“ _Holy shit,_ ” Ellana whispers, thrusting her arm far out. “I didn’t -- I didn’t do that! The staff did it!”

“Um, not to be insensitive to your cultural heritage, but are we going to be safe if we take that with us?” Carver is wrapped protectively around Merrill, who is absolutely _vibrating_ with excitement.

“Oh, lethallan, we are going to have _such_ fun studying that staff!”

Ellana can’t suppress her grin. “I know, right? I’ve never had a staff react like that! But it’s strange, I’ve used this one lots… Deshanna wanted me to be familiar with it. It has its own, um, energy? Vibe? It’s always been different than casting with my staff.” Thrusting it out, she says, “Here, you try it. I want to see if it happens again.”

“Oh _yes,_ please!” Merrill squirms out of Carver’s grasp, fairly dancing up the porch steps.

“Uh, hey, guys? Maybe we shouldn’t play with the supposedly ancient artifact that just tried to knock us out? Guys?”

Predictably, they ignore him. This time, Ellana casts a barrier, shielding herself and Merrill. It’s not terribly strong, as she does not use the staff to act as her channel, but the power is warm and bright as it flows down and emits from her left palm. It feels like a current of electricity racing through her, excited to be released.

Pushing her arm through the barrier, Merrill takes a grip on the staff. Ellana releases it quickly, squinting and flinching back, expecting the same reaction.

Not even the enchantments light up.

“Hmm…” Merrill gives it a shake, frowning. “How strange. You’re right, the way it draws on my mana is… bitey.”

“Bitey?” Tossing his hands in the air, Carver turns away. “Oh, bitey, that seems safe.”

Dropping the barrier, Ellana frowns. “That is very odd. It doesn’t feel that way at all, for me. Here, let’s try…”

She takes ahold of the staff, her hand below Merrill’s. Focusing on the flow and pull of mana, the way the staff turns and directs it, Ellana feels her way to the edge of Merrill’s magic. She’s right -- the staff is actively rejecting Merrill. But for her, the flow is strong and pure, like flood waters during the snow melt.

“Wow, this is _awfully_ interesting.” Releasing the staff, Merrill shakes out her hand and flexes her fingers several times. “Maybe it’s because you’re a Lavellan?”

“The whole _Clan_ is Lavellan. This staff is precious, yeah, but was actively used in Deshanna’s everyday life. They’ve all touched it, from time to time. It’s never reacted to anyone, not even me, the way that it is now.”

Beaming as though she’s been handed a gift, Merrill chirps, “Oh, I love a puzzle!”

Scowling, Carver says, “Figure it out later. Let’s go, my back is killing me. Andraste, I’m getting old.”

Merrill takes the staff, yelping as a short zap of storm magic lashes out against her. “I’m only moving you,” she scolds, knocking it against the porch in punishment. “No need to be rude, now is there?”

“You are talking to an inanimate object,” Carver points out. Which is really rather stupid, considering that Merrill talks to _everything._

With this, it is time to leave.

A bittersweet love fills Ellana. Loving she pulls the door shut, using the key to turn the lock and then the deadbolt. The screen slaps shut behind her as she walks away.

*

The former Dalish with a two-bedroom in Kirkwall’s alienage turns out to be Merrill herself. Ellana really should have expected this. Her room is not horribly small, though her furniture makes it tight. Not that she minds, as it feels rather like trips in the aravel. She remembers how safe and warm she felt inside it, tucked into the built-in bed with Deshanna warmly against her.

She’ll hang sheers around the bed, she decides. Oh, and throw pillows, she’ll make new ones. If she puts the blown glass oil lamp on the mantel and fills the room with bright art and jewel tones, it’ll feel even more like an aravel. Thankfully, there is no lingering scent of halla sweat.

In gratefulness, she buys Merrill and Carver lunch. They go to the same hole-in-the-wall they favored while Merrill and Ellana were pre-grad, where everything is covered in a film of grease and the burgers are _amazing._ Afterwards, Carver goes his own way -- citing a need for a heating pad for his back -- and she and Merrill return to their newly shared home to begin sorting out where things belong.

Luckily, Merrill hates cooking and has little more than one skillet, one spatula, and a pot without a lid. They pile everything in a now empty box, to mark with **FREE** and set outside their door, for any who needs them. There are hooks on one wall, left by the previous occupant, and they serve as an excellent place to hang much of cast iron. The items that are too large are stacked by size in a cabinet.

Ellana is a _bit_ anal about her kitchen. Yet another trait passed on from Deshanna.

They drape the sofa in a bright quilt, one done in the _Long March_ pattern. It is rows and rows of patchwork angles and rising towers. The boxes with her books are stack near the bookshelf, to be dealt with later. After, they turn on pop music and unpack in Ellana’s room.

By the time evening rolls around, Ellana is feeling middle-aged and grumpy.

“Elfroot?” asks Merrill.

“I have a massive bag of nugs. Clan grown.”

Sitting across Ellana’s bed, their backs against the wall, they pass a pipe back and forth. The room fills with smoke, and her aches fade away.

“I’m sleepy,” she announces, listing to one side.

“I’m hungry,” says Merrill. “Want to order in?”

She murmurs, “Something cheap, I’ll pay,” while already crawling towards her pillows. They still smell like home, like Deshanna’s house, and bleach, and always a bit like cedar from the linen closet. She squirms her way under the blanket, lays down her head, and passes out.

*

Ellana dreams of green. It surrounds her, blinding with its intensity. It pulses out of her, a matching glow of only slightly reduced strength exploding from her left hand. There is pain, agony beyond imaging, as she forces the key to the lock and twists it shut, over and over again. It is a thousand moments of bright green, her arm lifted, her soul shredding at the edges as she grits her teeth and ignores the pain. At least until it can be ignored no more, until her skin is cracked and webbed with power her fragile flesh has no hope of containing.

Ellana dreams that she is on her on knees. “Var lath vir suledin,” she begs, and the misery exploding emerald from her arm is nothing compared to the wound in her chest. There is no blood, no torn skin, no dagger between her ribs, but still it feels as though her bones are being shattered and her heart torn from the cage of its body.

Ellana dreams that she is dying. She can taste the blood in the back of her throat and on her lips. Her arm aches and itches, as it always does, even though it is half-magic and half-machine, with tiny twirling gears and fingers deft enough to pick up elfroot. She is on her back and, above her, the sky is green. It is _everywhere._ There is a voice, raging and desperate, and it shakes the whole world.

“ _No,_ ” he roars, and there are hands under her head, her shoulders. She’s being lifted, pulled against metal and fur, and all she can now see is _him._ His eyes, his nose, his mouth, his long chin. Every part so well traced and beloved that he remains even when he is far, far away.

“Not like this,” he pleads, “not now. Please. Please, vhenan.”

For the first time ever, Ellana wrenches herself free. Around her, the Fade is still. Gasping from the magical effort it required, her hands press against her knees as she tries to remind her brain that this body isn’t physically real, and she can breathe just fine in the waking world. Once the sensation has passed, she stands straight and looks around.

A battlefield is frozen in time around her. The Veil is unraveling like a sweater with a loose string. The Inquisitor, blood soaked and half-dead, rests in the arms of Fen’Harel. His face is obscured, the whisp recreating him unable to settle on one face, it seems. There are flashes of many, of nothing, of six red eyes, a dozen black ones, and a single pair that are blue and sad and very, very old.

“Weird,” says Ellana, her voice echoing in the stillness. She circles the scene, the lovers at the moment of their greatest tragedy, and attempts to puzzle out why her dreams always lead her here. Perhaps it is because she is Lavellan, and a mage at that. Is a message from the Final Inquisitor to a member of her Clan? A reminder? A warning? Only an echo that is spread down through her bloodline, awakening in those with strong enough magical power?

What she knows is _how_ and _why_ she can gain control, when she had never done so before: Kirkwall is different. In her youth, when she went to university the first time, she’d gained an immense amount of control over her dreams _because_ she was in Kirkwall. The Veil is so thin and warped, a rancid scar marking the place where something truly momentous and powerful occurred. Back then, despite all her efforts, this singular dream remained unaffected by her prodding and mental will.

Now, she’s eleven years older and more experienced in the use of her magic… and more sure of her place in the Fade.

“What are you trying to tell me?” Fen’Harel continues to flicker. The Inquisitor does respond.

“Great,” she mutters. “Glad we had this chat.”


End file.
